Securing data on laptop
I'll be spending the weekend setting up a laptop and wondered what others do to secure the data on their laptops. In the past I've had either an encrypted home partition, or an encrypted directory in my home directory. Both of those options require that a password needs to be entered when booting up, rather than when the user is logging in. So, if there were other users of the machine, they would have to know the password. And, if I get distracted when booting, and miss the password prompt, I have to remember the command to load the encrypted data. Is there someway of prompting for the password when a user logs in? Or of allowing a user to mount/unmount an encrypted partition? What do others do to secure their data on a laptop? TIA
jalal wrote:
Is there someway of prompting for the password when a user logs in? Or of allowing a user to mount/unmount an encrypted partition? You can have it in your .bashrc (/home/user/.bashrc) script which is executed after login - but then you need to login to a bash shell if I recall correctly.
What do others do to secure their data on a laptop?
- I have a BIOS system password enabled - I have an IBM R52 laptop which allows me to password protect the hard disk (in the BIOS). This option is enabled. - Passwords on all accounts. - Encrypted partition mounted to /home/albert/data which does not automount at bootup All passwords are at least 8 characters and the BIOS password != hard disk password != user password != encrypted partition password. The passwords contain lowercase, uppercase and numeral characters. But then again, I'm the only one using the laptop and I keep it locked away when not used. Albert -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.9/216 - Release Date: 2005/12/29
On 12/30/05, Albert
jalal wrote:
Is there someway of prompting for the password when a user logs in? Or of allowing a user to mount/unmount an encrypted partition? You can have it in your .bashrc (/home/user/.bashrc) script which is executed after login - but then you need to login to a bash shell if I recall correctly.
What do others do to secure their data on a laptop?
- I have a BIOS system password enabled - I have an IBM R52 laptop which allows me to password protect the hard disk (in the BIOS). This option is enabled. - Passwords on all accounts. - Encrypted partition mounted to /home/albert/data which does not automount at bootup [snipped]
Thanks for the detailed answer. I had completely forgotten about the BIOS password. Although I do remember that in the past all BIOS's had a default password, which made them pretty useless. I don't know if they still do that. Anyway, shorting the battery usually clears the password I think. Otherwise, good tips, thanks again and have a fine new year.
http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/suse/suse9.3/suselinux-adminguide_en/...
On 12/30/05, jalal
I'll be spending the weekend setting up a laptop and wondered what others do to secure the data on their laptops.
In the past I've had either an encrypted home partition, or an encrypted directory in my home directory.
Both of those options require that a password needs to be entered when booting up, rather than when the user is logging in. So, if there were other users of the machine, they would have to know the password. And, if I get distracted when booting, and miss the password prompt, I have to remember the command to load the encrypted data.
Is there someway of prompting for the password when a user logs in? Or of allowing a user to mount/unmount an encrypted partition?
What do others do to secure their data on a laptop?
TIA
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Albert
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jalal
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